Oh, Beth, What Can I Do?
by Finster
Summary: A songfic portraying the hell of war and the scars it leaves behind. R+R welcome, as always.


AUTHOR'S NOTES -- I recently heard this song on the radio, and though I'm fairly sure this is not what the author had intended it to mean at all, this is the immediate scenario my mind invented for it and it brought me to tears. I've done my best to recreate it in words. I hope you like it...and I apologize if it seems corny. "Beth" is copyright to KISS, I suppose....they were the band that performed it when I heard it. *shrugs*  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
~*Beth I hear you callin'  
But I can't come home right now  
Me and the boys are playin'  
And we just can't find the sound*~  
  
Private Derrick Silvertuft crouched behind a pile of smoking rubble, the acrid stench of burning flesh lacing his nostrils as the bodies of several of his comerades crackled and blazed nearby, mercifully too engulfed in flames to be seen. In his chest, his heart jackhammered dully, making his temples throb as he clutched his gun to his chest. The squirrel soldier didn't know how long the battle had gone on...or even how many of his teammates were left alive.   
  
As soon as they had hit the beach, the tediz had fallen upon them like a raging tide...cutting, slicing, and blasting them into oblivion in droves. The survivors had returned fire as best as they were able before scattering to hide themselves, their mission objectives that they had pounded into their skulls for the past week of training thrown completely to the wind in favor of panic.   
  
A high gobbling scream lilted past Derrick's ears over the steady thrumming of the guns and silent roar of the flames. Another man down....who had it been this time? Striker? Enrique? He couldn't get over how much this felt like a bad dream...how he had kept expecting both sides to aim their guns and have one of those little "bang" flags pop out of each barrel...and then they'd all laugh and call it a day.   
  
There was a soft foom sound and then, scant inches from his left side, a plume of dirt went up, showering him in dust and gravel as someone's bazooka missed its mark. Derrick swallowed hard, the thick dizziness of a faint threatening to overtake him. As his head began to lull forward, the squirrel sank his teeth into his bottom lip, a spurt of sour blood flowing over his tongue as he snapped back to awareness. It was a trick his father had taught him when he had been younger....funny how things he had dismissed as useless before the war had started were coming in handy now.  
  
A tediz rasped in its ugly language and he could hear the soft patter of its stitched feet against the dirt as it drew nearer to where he hid. The gray squirrel drew in his breath, focusing every iota of his attention on the ungodly bear's sounds of movement, filtering out all of the other loud raucousness of battle surrounding him. It took two steps. Paused for a moment, muttered to itself, and then began to walk again, slower with more practice in its step. Derrick slowly let his breath out and curled his finger around the gun's trigger, not turning to fire just yet. He had been seen...and this son of a bitch was hoping to sneak up on him and get a point blank shot.   
  
The footsteps stopped and there was the faintest of clicks as the tediz cocked its gun as quietly as it was able. Derrick lurched to the right, sending the enemy's blast careening uselessly into the dirt. The tediz gave a cheated growl as Private Silvertuft thrust the barrel of his own weapon between the stuffed bear's eyes and pulled the trigger. With a muted bang, the air was filled with tattered brown fabric and wet clumps of white-green matter that served as the bear's stuffing.  
  
As the tediz collapsed to the ground, headless and twitching, Derrick slumped against the rubble, suddenly feeling exhausted. This bear had been his first kill....and the rush of exhiliration that was supposed to come after knocking down one of his foes seemed to have overlooked him, leaving him feeling afraid, alone, and most of all, homesick.   
  
His thoughts turned to just a month ago when things had started to look bad for the squirrels as the war had raged on and all available males between the ages of 17 and 25 had been encouraged to enlist. Despite the protests of his family and his fiancee, he had done exactly that.  
  
"This is suicide, Derrick!" Beth had told him in a last appeal the night before he had recruited himself into this mess. "Think of what you're doing to your parents!" He had expected this from her and had easily ducked it.  
  
"Dad's always told me to make something of myself. This is my chance." he had argued. He still remembered the stormy look in her green eyes, on the edge of tears but not quite there.  
  
"What about me?" she had asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "What if you don't come back? What am I supposed to do then?"  
  
"I'll come back, Beth." he had told her with steady reassurance in his voice as he put a hand on her shoulder. "But our boys need all the help they can get right now."  
  
"But YOU don't have to go." she snapped, twisting away from him. She had walked three paces away, her ears lowered against her mane of blonde hair and her tail twitching thoughtfully before tentatively looking over her shoulder at him, the first of her tears beginning to spill down her cheeks. "I love you, Derrick. Please.....please don't do this to me."   
  
As the last few words of their argument played through his head, Derrick wondered just how he HAD managed to go through with it, finally. Just what had he and the others proved so far other than how easy it was to die out here? As the whistling boom of a missile striking the ground shook the earth beneath him, Private Silvertuft became more and more certain that he would never see his family again.  
  
"Stabayoo!" a tediz cried. Derrick reflexively shrank away from the unnerving voice as a trio of tediz stormed past, their guns at the ready on their shoulders and taking no notice of him as they loped off into battle. As they passed, Derrick tried to imagine himself somewhere....anywhere else other than this. His fondest mental picture was standing aboard the ship that was carrying him back home where he would marry Beth, father one or two children, and die an old man.   
  
  
~*Just a few more hours  
And I'll be right home to you  
I think I hear them callin'*~  
  
  
He remained doubled over, quivering faintly, for what seemed hours before slowly...very slowly....uncurling himself again. The war around him hadn't faded at all, and he could hear the bears,seemingly, on every side of him. He laid his gun across his lap, simply waiting for another of them to discover him. He didn't think he'd be able to run very far if he was flushed out before he was caught by one of the snipers and hoped he'd be able to hold his own for awhile in his hiding place until another possibility opened itself up to him.  
  
Something heavy fell on his shoulder and he gave a startled yelp, struggling to get ahold of his gun as he clumsily whirled on whoever had snuck up behind him. He instantly recognized the features of Olson, a stringy young man with a severe crossbite he had talked with briefly on the boat. Olson's features were distorted with pain and blood matted his gray fur as he took a firmer hold of Derrick's shoulders, hoisting himself a little closer.   
  
"M--m'legs, Silvertuft...." he grunted, his eyes rolling back to expose the silvery whites. "M'legs....R'they okay?" Derrick craned his neck to look over Olson's shoulder and stifled a gasp of horror. From the waist down, Olson's body was missing, his entrails dragging behind him in a fan of gore.   
  
"They're fine." he heard himself say to the dying squirrel as he quickly averted his eyes from the scene, silently wondering how he had managed to drag himself this far. "You're.....you're gonna be alright, Olson." Olson focused his flickering gaze on Derrick, slowly letting an ungodly smile spread across his face.  
  
"Good." he grunted. "Wuz....always a runner, Silvertuft..." he coughed, venting a spray of red droplets over Derrick's uniform. "Gnna run me a race....Gonna run me a race when we git home. Run me a race with Conway...." he coughed again, his grip tightening to a painful hold on Derrick's shoulders as his body convulsed and his lips pulled back from his bloodstained teeth in an agonized deathsnarl.   
  
With a final spastic jerk, Olson went rigid and then, slowly, began to relax as death laid its black shroud over him. Derrick stared into the vacant glazed eyes of Olson's corpse for a long moment before gently shoving the dead squirrel away. Out here, dead was dead....and right now, if he didn't get his ass moving, he'd be joining Olson and everybody else who was assuming outdoor temperature.  
  
Gathering his feet beneath him, Derrick paused a moment and then poked his head out from around the corner of the rubble. As far as he could see, there were no tediz in the immediate area. Time to move out. Muttering a hasty prayer under his breath, Derrick launched himself out of hiding and ran frantically, fighting panic with every step he took.   
  
He was spotted immediately and bullets were soon whistling past his body. He could feel them slice the air directly at either side of his temples, making loathesome whistling noises as they just barely missed striking home in his skull.   
  
There!  
  
Up ahead was the gaping mouth of a foxhole. If he could get there and get himself situated inside, he'd, if not have an advantage, at least even the score between him and his assailants. A bullet whined off of the dirt centimeters from the toe of his boot as he closed the distance between himself and the foxhole. Twenty yards....fifteen....ten.....  
  
The world suddenly exploded in white-hot pain as one of the tediz squeezed off a shot that had entered his right leg just below the kneecap and exploded outward, leaving his calf attached to his body by a few stray muscle strings. Derrick cried out, falling forward in a full body tackle with the ground. Pain...he had never been in so much pain before.   
  
There were pattering footsteps behind him and he winced, realizing that the tediz that had been firing at him were approaching now to examine him further. Would they torture him? Would they stand over him and gloat about their victory? They had done neither. Even as he was pondering his fate, lying in a puddle of his own spreading blood, the tediz that had done the number on his leg approached him and, with no hesitation at all, had rudely shoved the muzzle of its gun against the back of the squirrel's neck and fired again. For Private Derrick Silvertuft, the horror was over.  
  
~*Oh Beth what can I do?  
Beth what can I do?*~  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Bethany Rosenburg sat at her kitchen table in her pink bathrobe, quietly drinking a mug of tea. It was going on three in the morning and she told herself, yet again, that she ought to be asleep. Yet, try as she might, she was unable to. Her mind was fixated on Derrick....and it seemed to finally sink in for her just how much she missed him since he had left a month ago. Despite the tearful argument they had had before he had left, she still loved him dearly.   
  
~*You say you feel so empty  
That our house just ain't a home  
That I'm always somewhere else  
And you're always there alone*~  
  
How was he getting along, she wondered? The female squirrel smiled faintly as she realized he must be driving the others crazy with how bullheaded he could be about things. In a couple weeks more, if they hadn't seen combat, she wouldn't have been surprised to find him on her doorstep with a third class mail stamp on his forehead.  
  
The musing gave way to a pang of lonliness that pulled heavily on her heart and made her wince. Outside, crickets chirred their listless melody and the moon blazed overhead in a cloudless sky dotted with silver pinpricks of starlight. On nights like this, she and Derrick usually took long walks together by the riverside...and would sometimes stay out late enough to watch the sun come up before returning home and curling up together to sleep.   
  
God, how she missed that. Had it really only been a month since he had gone away? She hoped the war would be over soon...and she imagined he'd fill her ears for hours with all of his tales of bunkroom horror when she went to meet him at the docks.   
  
~*Just a few more hours  
And I'll be right home to you*~  
  
Even as a smile touched her lips again, she felt as though she was no longer alone. She had put her imagination to such work, it was almost possible to believe that Derrick was sitting right across from her, having a mug of tea of his own. She could almost smell the faint spicy aroma of his cologne...it was amazing what her mind could invent when it wanted to make her believe something, she decided.  
  
Never the less, she was alone....why not indulge it? "Derrick," she told the empty room. "No more wars for you, after this. You're breaking my damned heart..." she was met with only silence as she took a small drink of her tea. "Besides, soldiers aren't the women's rage anymore, its sailors now....didn't anyone tell you that?" She smirked a bit at her own joke, still envisioning him across from her. There was a slight whisper in the air....a murmur of laughter unmistakably belonging to her fiancee.  
  
"You'd better be behaving yourself, you know." she told the empty space across from her as she got up from where she was sitting and padded slowly and quietly across the kitchen, looking out the window at the clear night. "You made me promise to stay loyal while you were gone, and I should have made you do the same....no loose weasel harlots for you, Mr. Silvertuft." The same whisper of his laughter hung in the air as she closed her eyes, almost convinced she could feel the gentle caress of his arms as they closed around her waist from behind her.  
  
"Oh, Derrick....I miss you so much...." she whispered, puckering her lips slightly for a kiss that she knew she wouldn't recieve, yet wished she could. As though in answer, a brief sensation of eerily warm air brushed over her waiting mouth....it was as though the wind itself had given her the kiss she had opened herself to.   
  
Beth didn't have time to reflect on this strange occurrance, however, as from across the kitchen the phone rang shrilly in its cradle, making her snap her head in its direction. As quickly as it had seemed to overtake her, the maddeningly real feeling that Derrick was in the room with her vanished completely. Who on earth could be trying to get ahold of her at THIS time of the night?   
  
~*I think I hear them callin'  
Oh, Beth, what can I do?  
Beth, what I can do?*~  
  
Confused, she crossed the kitchen and gingerly lifted the phone to her ear as though she was afraid it might burn her.   
  
"Hello?" she asked uncertainly.  
  
"Ahh....yeah, Miz Rosenburg?" a gruff voice asked, sounding more than a little awkward.   
  
"Who is this?" she asked, feeling her defenses raise a little. "If you're selling something I'm--"  
  
"Err..no. No. Nothing like that, ma'am." the voice cleared its throat. "You were....ahh...you were acquainted with Private Derrick Silvertuft, yes?"  
  
:"What do you mean 'were'?" she asked, instantly terrified. "What happened to Derrick??" There was an uneasy silence on the other end. "Tell me!!" she nearly shrieked into the reciever.  
  
"He's gone, ma'am. Killed in action." the voice told her, the words coming quickly and curtly before whoever was on the other end lost their nerve. Everything seemed to shatter around her. Killed? No....not Derrick. Not HER Derrick! A mistake. This had to be some sort of horrible mistake.   
  
"No..." she moaned, nearly collapsing and catching herself on the rim of the sink with one fluttering hand. "It can't be him. Anybody else...not Derrick."   
  
"I'm sorry, Miz Rosenburg." the voice said hoarsely. "Truly sorry. If there's anything I can do---" Beth was no longer listening as she let the reciever clatter out of her hand to the floor and sank to the floor, sobs racking her body as she curled her tail around herself in misery.   
  
~*Beth, I know you're lonely  
And I hope you'll be alright*~  
  
Unnoticed by her, a barely visible vapor, vaguely squirrel-shaped, crossed the kitchen soundlessly, pausing by her grieving form a moment. It seemed to touch her shoulder, but she took no notice. It hesitated a moment more before whisking out of the room. It passed through the front hallway and through the front door.   
  
Outside in the darkness, the figure stood still a moment, looking up at the glowing orb of the moon....studying it, as though remembering something. Trying to remember where it was supposed to go, and what to do from here.   
  
A faint whistle sounded from up ahead, attracting the figure's attention. More vapors approached, each swimming in the night air before taking on the recognizable form of a soldier that had fallen in the seige on the beach. They formed a silent line as one hovered forward, saluting Derrick briskly. He hesitated only a moment before returning the salute and watched as the other soldiers shifted slightly, creating a place for him in the line.   
  
Derrick spared a last lingering look at the house he had once shared with Bethany. No more. Never again. She was still alive...and she would move on to take a different direction. He, however, was part of something bigger now. Moving forward, he took his place in the line of ghostly soldiers. The one that had come forward smiled at him before pointing at the horizon and motioning for the others to follow. One by one, in a neat single-file line, the soldiers vanished into the darkness.  
  
~*Because me and the boys'll be playin'  
All night....*~  
  
  
THE END 


End file.
